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The Money Changer and His Wife

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The Money Changer and His Wife
An oil painting of a money-lender or tax collector and his wife
ArtistQuentin Matsys
Year1514
MediumOil on panel
Dimensions70.5 cm × 67 cm (27.8 in × 26 in)
LocationLouvre, Paris

The Money Changer and His Wife is a 1514 oil on panel painting by the Flemish renaissance artist Quentin Matsys in the collection of the Louvre.[1]

Painting

A man, weighing the jewels and pieces of gold on the table in front of him sits next to his wife who is reading a book of devotion with an illustration of the Virgin and Child.[1] The couple is not dressed as members of nobility, but rather as well-to-do burghers of Antwerp, where the painting was made. At the time, Antwerp had grown with the influx of many southern immigrants fleeing the Spanish Inquisition. Among this international community there was a demand for money-changers and money-lenders, as international commerce was increasing in the port city.

The same motief was used 25 years later by Matsys' follower, the painter Marinus van Reymerswaele.

This painting was copied in a painting of the gallery of Cornelis van der Geest by Willem van Haecht a full century later in the 1620s. Van der Geest was an admirer of Matsys' work and owned several of his paintings, including this one. He also commemorated Matsys' hundredth death anniversary with a new plaque in the Antwerp Cathedral.[2]

References

  1. ^ a b Catalog entry in museum website
  2. ^ Love in the Kunstkamer, by Gary Schwartz, Fine Arts Magazine Tableau, Summer 1996
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